


fugitive warlords

by elithewho



Category: A Most Violent Year (2014)
Genre: Begging, F/M, Heavy Petting, Period-Typical Racism, Power Dynamics, Pre-Canon, Sexual Content, Slurs, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-10
Updated: 2016-11-10
Packaged: 2018-08-27 05:02:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8388181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elithewho/pseuds/elithewho
Summary: Abel thought she was trying a little too hard, the way she wound a lock of flaxen hair around her finger and sucked on a poisonously green lollipop, giggling at the other drivers’ weak attempts at getting her to go to the movies with them.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [celeste9](https://archiveofourown.org/users/celeste9/gifts).



> i can remember when we were in high school  
> our dreams were like fugitive warlords  
> plotting triumphant returns to the city  
> keeping tec-9s tucked under the floorboards
> 
> "Home Again Garden Grove," the Mountain Goats
> 
> thanks and love to my beta <3<3
> 
> merry yuletide! :D!

When Abel first saw Anna, he didn’t know she was the boss’s daughter. It wasn’t that unusual for _gringas_ to hang around and flirt with the drivers, it was their little rebellion against their rich daddies. Anna didn’t seem too different; white blonde hair, knee socks, blouse untucked from her plaid skirt, school tie stuffed in her Hugo Boss book bag, Tiffany charm bracelet glittering on her wrist.

She was obviously daddy’s little princess and knew it, but she also wanted to push just hard enough to make him squirm, but not so hard that her prep school friends stopped talking to her. Abel thought she was trying a little too hard, the way she wound a lock of flaxen hair around her finger and sucked on a poisonously green lollipop, giggling at the other driver’s weak attempts at getting her to go to the movies with them.

Abel knew that it took more than American slang to impress _gringas_. He had been practicing every night for at least an hour, styling his hair like an American, wearing his jeans like an American, smoking like an American and most importantly, speaking like an American. Which was more than saying “cool” and “doll,” it was the inflection in his voice. He knew even the hint of an accent would give him away in a heartbeat.

He let Anna flirt with him, giggle at his dumb jokes and touch a bicep to feel the muscle, because he did more than drive oil trucks, you know. After she had wandered away, as effervescent and pixie-like as ever, one of the other drivers punched his shoulder.

“That’s the boss’s daughter, you know,” he said in Spanish. “Look but don’t touch.”

Abel thought that was funny. Anna so obviously wanted to be touched.

He saw her a few more times and every time she responded to his flirtations, he felt a little more American.

“I like your hair,” she said one afternoon, with that coy smile of hers.

“Yeah?” he muttered, trying not to sound too pleased with himself. He thought he’d gotten that elegant wave perfected, hours of practicing in the bathroom, hands sticky with pomade.

“Do you wanna catch a movie sometime?” she said and Abel responded as coolly as he could, pretending he had to think about it and she’d have to convince him.

That made her laugh too and he felt his chest swell with pride.

Abel was working 80 hour weeks at that point, but come Saturday night, he was bright-eyed and bushytailed for their date. Anna wore a pleated skirt and a pink cardigan with a butterfly shaped button holding it closed. He took her to see _Goldfinger_ with Sean Connery and there went all his spending money for the week. He’d have to scrape by with the little bit of food he had saved, mostly rice and baked beans. It was worth it, though, even if Anna barely let him kiss her. He had figured she wasn’t as much of a bad girl as she liked to pretend. She let him hold her hand and kiss her lightly on the lips when he escorted her home. He even managed to put his arm around her during the movie, but that was it.

When the other drivers pushed for dirty details, Abel demurred. Let them assume the worst. He didn’t have anything to prove to them.

Over the next week, Abel was killing himself with 12, sometimes 14-hour days. One day, at the end of his all-night shift, he hit the locker room, utterly exhausted and dreaming of his bed. He saw something that didn’t belong: Anna hanging out by the door like a white lily surrounded by coal dust.

“You shouldn't be here,” he said immediately. His hair had gone all curly again, the pomade melting away.

Anna shrugged. It was a week day and she should obviously have been at school. Her uniform was just disheveled enough to make her look rebellious and she had clearly folded her skirt over the waistband a couple times to make it shorter and show off more thigh. Abel had a suspicion that she gave the nuns no end of grief.

“Maybe I wanted to see you,” she said, tossing her hair back, precisely casual, not wanting to seem like she cared at all.

Abel should have laughed at her contrived mannerisms, but that would make him a hypocrite.

They ended up in a utility closet, Anna pressing him hard against the door. Before kissing him she had stuck her chewing gum on the wall; she tasted like hot cinnamon. She kissed like she knew what she was doing and Abel genuinely couldn’t tell what was real and what was pretense. She did everything like that, with so much confidence that it was impossible to know if she was pretending.

Abel was 18 and was still determined to see just how far he could get with girls before they slapped his hands away or got obviously uncomfortable. Anna was tugging at a handful of his hair so he pushed his hand up her skirt, groping at the swell of her ass. She didn’t even flinch. Abel felt for the frilly edge of her panties, squeezing her cheek, pulling her close. He felt her fingernails scratching at his neck, playing with the buttons on his work shirt. She smelled so warm, so sweet, like penny candy. He pushed two fingers between her thighs, feeling how hot her cunt was through her panties.

There was a sound in her throat, a soft little moan, and Abel wanted to believe that was the real Anna, a real sound he could get from her. He pushed his luck, squeezing open the little pearl buttons on her blouse, slipping greedy fingers into her brassier. 

His mouth felt hot, bruised even as her teeth nibbled his lip. She wasn’t shy, Anna. Nothing he could do would make her balk. Her hand found the front of his trousers, rubbing and squeezing his erection like she knew just what she was doing. Only later, much later, would she tell him she was working on instinct and whatever she could glean from the dirty novels her mother kept in a box in the back of her closet.

Anna managed to rub him off through his pants and didn’t even apologize for the stains which Abel had to scrub out himself with a little sliver of soap in the kitchen sink. Abel had gotten her brassier unhooked so he could suck at her pink nipples and he thought Anna was trying her best not to moan, because she was cool and collected even like this. But then they heard footsteps in the hallway, distant voices, and Abel wasn’t quite ready to risk everything for her. Not yet.

 

She had been the catalyst for everything. Abel had been determined to be more than just another wetback and Anna was the key. Her old man wouldn’t live forever and she was his only child. He just needed to act American enough to make him comfortable, and he’d been working at that tirelessly since the moment he got to New York.

All those years later and Anna hadn’t really changed that must. He had misunderstood her, he knew that now. He thought she wanted rebellion, and he wanted power. Maybe it was the other way around. He paid for her glittering dresses and manicures and the elegant dinners they went to with other rich, important people.

When they got home, Abel helped her undress. She smelled like Coco Chanel, a bit removed from whatever girlish perfume she had worn as a teenager.

“Watch out for the beads,” Anna snapped at him as he pulled down the zipper.

The tone of her voice made him want to rip it right down the seam, ruin the thousands of dollars he had spent on this dress alone. But he didn’t. He parted the zipper carefully, pushing his hands inside her dress, feeling the buttery smoothness of her silk shift. He helped her step out and hung the gown in her closet. Anna helped him unknot his tie.

Her expression was impossible to discern in the low night of their bedroom, but her eyes looked large, surrounded in smudged black liner. Her brow was knit in concern, or maybe anger, he couldn’t tell.

“You did well tonight,” she said finally, pushing his dress shirt off his shoulders.

Abel didn’t respond. She was always condescending, even if she didn’t mean to be. Or maybe she always meant it. He kissed her neck, brushing her hair out of the way, cupping the back of her skull gently.

“Hold on,” she said sharply, pulling away. “I need to clean my face.”

As Anna smeared cold cream on her face and methodically wiped it off, Abel watched her. He sat on the bed, carefully removing his shoes and setting them in the closet, folding his trousers before draping them over a chair.

She was cold and distant, the way a marble statue looks in a museum, coolly impassive. Abel could fake it most of the time but with Anna on top of him, he lost it. 

“Fuck, Anna, just… please,” he mumbled, face red and burning as she teased him, slapping his hand away when he tried to touch her.

But her hand was constant, toying, fondling him so slowly that his voice broke, stumbled over a sputtering moan.

Anna was an expert at breaking him, at pushing him just enough to make him squirm and then letting his own eagerness get the better of him. Sometimes he wanted her so much he didn’t care, other times he felt utterly pathetic.

“ _Please_ ,” he moaned one last time and then she sat astride him, letting him in.

In front of the world, Anna was his companion, his right arm, his wife but not his keeper. But in private, they both knew who really held the reins.


End file.
